This morning, we woke up to the incredible news that the organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest, to be celebrated this year in Stockholm, had specifically included the Basque flag, the ikurriña, as one of the flags whose presence is prohibited in the celebration of this festival.

Along with a generic prohibition, which is already something, the organization has drawn up a special list of flags that are especially prohibited. The Basque flag is in that group, accompanied by a list of flags whose non-presence the members of the organization must be especially for. We’re not going to evaluate the choice of this group of flags as especially “perverse”, but we do consider that presenting them in the same group of flags as that of the Islamic State shows an especially high level of clumsiness.

DeGaulle giving a military salute to the Basque flag, the ‘ikurriña’, after the Battle of Pointe de Grave

This insult to the Basque flag and to the Basque who for more than 100 years have given their lives for freedom and democracy under the Basque flag is enormous. When Sweden was still conserving its “neutral status” during the Second World War, and its government, legitimately elected, was selling iron to the Nazis so they could make the guns to try to oppress Europe, Basque troops, led by the ikurriña, were fighting fascism.

We don’t know, nor do we care, who was brainless enough to make this decision, but what we do know is that whoever is in charge of the organization of this Festival and in the Swedish Government, who is hosting the event, need to correct this document and apologize immediately.

This matter is so clear that not only are Basque institutions, parties, and citizens demanding a rectification, even the Foreign Ministry of the Kingdom of Spain has asked for an “urgent fix” to “correct this error”, though for us, calling this an “error” seems a little light for what is really an offense against intelligence, history, and all Basques: it’s really an insult.

We invite our readers to join any campaign to make those responsible know that this mess has only one solution: to immediately rectify and apologize.

We have joined one that invites all those who feel offended by this decision to upload a photo of the ikurriña to Facebook and Twitter, with the hashtag #ThisIsIkurrina and mention Eurovision.

Eurovision’s user name on Twitter is @Eurovision, and on Facebook @EurovisionSongContest